Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Swedish afternoon

Have you been to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden? I have, many times, most recently during the first weekend of June. The weekend trip was organised by The Flavours of Estonia, and we were 10 Estonian foodbloggers and food journalists in total. We had plenty of good food and met some very nice people, but in general I don't have much to write about the trip, as I didn't bring my camera and the horrid weather conditions (a meagre 5 degrees Celsius, heavy non-stop rain and strong Nordic winds) kind of kept me from really enjoying that beautiful Athens of the North this time.

But Stockholm - and Swedish food - are lovely, so we invited some K's friends and colleagues over this Sunday afternoon for a Swedish summer party. We were 17 adults and 6 kids (and 4 chickens and a beautiful Alaskan Malamute), all gathered around our brand new patio table. We spent the first part of the afternoon party outside - it was beautiful and sunny, but then some threatening clouds overcast the sun, so we moved the food inside after a while. Luckily, we were saved the downpour, and most of us ventured outside again soon. Good time was had by all, if I can say so as a hostess :)

I thought you might want to see what we served at this Swedish party, no? Here are the photos with links to recipes, where appropriate.Our daughter has seated herself smartly next to the trio of Swedish cheese and helped herself very generously:

The cheeseboard showcased Präst, Greve and Svecia, as recommended by a charming Swedish food writer Jens Linder whom I met in Stockholm. Of course, there as also Västerbotten (not pictured). We had some top-notch Swedish crispbread to go with the cheese, a gift from Ami Hofstadius of Visit Sweden. My gorgeous new serviettes were sewn by Arteljee. On the top left corner you can see a whole hot-smoked trout and the creamy caviar dressing that I wrote about just a few weeks ago here:

Here's a better close-up of the table. You can see some new season's Estonian potatoes, a box of strawberries (imported, unfortunately, as the local ones are still few and prohibitively expensive), small round canapes with smoked Baltic herring and pickle cream (böcklingröra), dark rye bread triangles with salted herring and egg salad (gubbröra), Västerbottens cheese pie, a big bowl of tomato salad:

Gubbröra or herring and egg spread on crispy rye bread triangles:
Böcklingröra on roasted bread:Västerbottens cheese pie. We actually had two - one baked by yours truly, the other by Tallinn-based Swede Lars-Olof (pictured, the pie, not the guy):

Again, that tomato salad that tasted already like a summer tomato salad should taste:

For dessert, I baked two cakes - a large kärleksmums or Swedish cocoa cake, and a simple spiced rhubarb cake (very Estonian, not Swedish at all). The guests brought along lots of strawberries, which were all eaten very quickly as well.

Mmmmm, that looks so good! Just have to tell you that I am Swedish with a Swedish cafe in Toronto, Canada and I have a wonderful Estonian girl working for me. I also get lots of Estonian customers who orders smörgåstårta. Your blog and recipes are fantastic!!